Marked

August had already past. The last of the rhododendron blooms had withered to gray and fallen to the shady creeks below, leaving only long glossy leaves open to the sky. In another month, those would be the only leaves left under the gray sky of November, and at last the narrow trails cloven hooves had cut through the underbrush would be clear of golden, dead leaves and would be waiting for the first snow of winter.

But that time had not come yet. Autumn was only a taste on the late summer air, and young muscles were becoming hot and thick with the late season drive to spar and to win. Bucks that had been only fawns earlier that season were leaving half hearted wounds in the sides of trees with their budding displays of antlers. In another few weeks, those tiny scrapes would be marred by the deep scarring of the elder bucks, those that carried the weight of years in a branching crown on their thick necks. Late summer was the time for the young bucks to pretend.

Running Cedar was such a buck. His spots had only just faded, and his antlers weren’t more than velveteen nubs between his ears, but he felt the rush of hot blood all the same and spent most of his days sparring with whatever would return the fight—a low shrub, an old oak, another young buck if he could find one. As the days waned shorter, he spent more and more of them further from the side of his mother who, for her part, seemed more and more inclined to let him go. She, too, felt the coming season, and was not anxious to keep a hot blooded young buck by her side. And so as it often happens in nature, when Running Cedar’s mother made it clear she no longer desired his company, there was little grief felt by either. Running Cedar was instead invigorated further by the new freedom and spent his days moving further than he ever had before.

This was how he first came into Dawn Back’s territory. From the point he forded the crystal cold stream, Running Cedar was stepping into legend, moving away from the simple but successful life of the white tail into a far more complex and precarious existence. But it is important to understand where Running Cedar was coming from before discovering where he was going.

Running Cedar did not know himself by any name before meeting the Marked. He knew others by their smell, and his mother by sight, but there was no question about himself and whether or not he was. He was, and that was all. He knew himself by drive and instinct, by motion and pain, by the feel of sun on his chestnut flank, by the taste of dandelions. Running Cedar did not fear the end of himself, but only knew to preserve it by the pulse of ancestry in his blood.

And so Running Cedar did not stop to wonder what was on the other side of the stream. The tug of movement was inside him, the call to search for and find, and there was no warning scent along the bank to keep him away. His kindling legs stepped high through the shallow stream, and in a bound he was up the far bank, moving on, every step taking him deeper into a place like he had never known before.

It began very slowly, the realization. It had started as soon as Running Cedar had come across the water, but so subtly it was indistinguishable from the other instincts inside him. There was nothing truly significant in the increased apprehension as Running Cedar walked, or even anything strange in curiosity about the new space around him.
Rather it was the growing awareness of apprehension and curiosity that was truly unusual. Running Cedar’s internal workings had never been questioned in the past; when his gut told him to run, he ran. When something inside him insisted he move to investigate, he did so. But in the last one hundred yards, Running Cedar had become steadily more aware of his own concern about this new place; he was able, without realizing how, to wonder why he felt nervous.

And when he was suddenly able to wonder about being able to wonder, he paused, his large ears flicking forward and his nose held slightly aloft, as if the answer might lie in the forest ahead of him. In many ways, it did, but not at all in the form he might have expected it to take—for now that he had crossed the stream, he could also expect.
There was nothing moving ahead to trigger the apprehension he felt building in his hind legs. No smells of danger reached him, nor any sound of threat, but he could not shake the feeling that this place he had come in to was not a safe place.

“Who’s there?”

The voice was in a language he understood, obviously spoken by a white tail, but he had never been addressed by such sounds before, and rather than answer them he shot away like an arrow released and ran as he did when real danger showed itself.

The main flaw in his plan was that his strategies for running were designed to escape predators, not other white tail. The deer could follow him easily, and he could hear at least two large bodies moving behind him, as fast if not faster than himself. There was no instinct which taught him to fear other deer this way, and so as his heart rate slowed so did his pace until at last he came to a stop and turned to face his pursuers.

At first, there was nothing to see, though he could still hear them moving around him. This was not, however, because they were lagging behind, but because they had circled him wide and were coming in from all direction now. Running Cedar realized this moments before the underbrush broke and four figures circled him. Running Cedar knew their smells—they were all mature white tail buck—but there was something immediately unsettling about them. They did not approach Running Cedar as deer are wont to do, either in a friendly sniffing sort of way or in an unfriendly territorial sort of way. Instead, they stopped roughly a bound from him and stood rigid, not making a sound or move.

Running Cedar balked at their strange behavior, but there was no where to run; they had him surrounded. He could see their branching antlers like a fence; all had at least eight points, and all were much larger than Running Cedar. Before he could make much more of the situation, however, the buck standing in front of him spoke.

“How and from what have you come?”

If Running Cedar had been familiar with questions, he would have realized this was a strange one. As it was, the young buck could no more make sense of the question than he could of the strange behavior. He simply stood frozen, as still as a deer can which is far stiller than most animals, and stared at the speaker.

The older buck waited a moment, and when Running Cedar did not answer, he stepped a little closer, lowering his head, not so as to present his antlers but so to be eye level with the younger buck. “Are you original?” There was a quiver of wonder in his voice, if Running Cedar could have known.

Running Cedar, however, did not know. He only knew the deer was communicating to him in a way he did not understand. Running Cedar’s own body language screamed of fear and the desire to flee; surely the older buck could see this. But there was more happening in Running Cedar’s mind than before; now there was a pestering alarm concerning why they were cornering him, and what was going to happen. Running Cedar’s fear rose even higher as these foreign concepts clarified in his mind, and the muscles of his flank and shoulders twitched.

“We never seek to harm,” said the buck to his left, a male a little smaller than the first and a much darker shade of umber.

“You’ve no reason to fear if you come from the wood,” said another, this one behind Running Cedar.

There was another pause, and then the buck on Running Cedar’s right said, “Can you understand?”

With all these strange voices tossed, with the feeling of being trapped, and with the strange new sensations in his own head, Running Cedar suddenly felt the need to escape. Without thinking, he lunged forward, straight toward the largest buck who came up on his hind legs to meet him. He kept his hooves neatly away from Running Cedar but used the bulk of his size to shut off that route to freedom, so Running Cedar whirled and sprinted toward a second buck. This one, too, successfully hemmed him in, and so on until Running Cedar felt panic nearly boiling out of him. Again facing the largest buck, Running Cedar braced his back legs, his dark eyes wide and shining with fear, and, unaware of his own action, shouted, “Let me out!”

If the four bucks that surrounded Running Cedar were surprised, Running Cedar himself was so taken aback his quivering stopped and he simply stared into the face of the largest buck, as if hoping for an answer. It was then that he realized the eyes of that buck were not the glossy brown of a white tail but a foggy, cold blue around the pitch black pupil. This unsettled Running Cedar further, but he did not try to escape again, nor did he speak again.

The other four bucks were glancing between themselves now, obviously confused.

“He knows the tongue,” said the dark coated one, and Running Cedar realized his coat was not only deep brown but a spider web of white lines crossed and recrossed on his back, weaving and intricate design unlike anything he’d ever seen on the coat of a deer.

“But he does not know us,” said the buck to Running Cedar’s right. His face was emblazoned with black barring that ran down his neck and chest as well.

“If he’s only just come from the wood,” said the buck behind Running Cedar who he did not turn to look at, “how could he?”

The largest buck was still staring at Running Cedar, his pale eyes looking hard for some answer Running Cedar could not fathom. The more they spoke, the clearer the sounds they made became. It almost seemed he could understand them, if he only held still enough and listened hard enough.

Finally, the large buck leaned his graceful head forward until he could touch noses with Running Cedar. They stood a moment that way, each smelling each other. Running Cedar thought the large buck smelled of wet earth, the kind that is collected under rotting wood where the beetles burrow.

“Running cedar,” the large buck said, pulling his head back. “That’s the smell you carry, and such will be your name on this side of the stream. Come, follow me.”

The other bucks seemed to agree to this, but Running Cedar himself did not move. It was clear enough the large buck’s intention even though he did not understand the words as he turned and looked back over his shoulder, but Running Cedar did not want to follow. The blooming awareness that had begun as he crossed the water was moving faster and faster now, and he was able to wonder where and for what purpose. Before he could stop himself again, he asked, “Where?”

“To Dawn Back,” said the large buck. “You must endure carthe.”

This made no sense to Running Cedar even though the words had clarified. He could understand the sounds, but meanings were still slippery. “I don’t understand.”

“How is it,” said the large buck, “you speak so well?”

Running Cedar only blinked his large, dark eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“Then come with me, and I’ll show you.”

The bucks behind and beside Running Cedar stepped forward, crowding him, and reluctantly he began to follow the large buck, his steps slow and cautious. He did not speak again as they traveled, nor did his hosts, but all the while they walked, his mind was growing sharper and more and more aware not of his surroundings, but of himself. What and who he was were tumbled beside where and why he was going. His life on the other side of the stream, that one and one half a year of living as a wild deer, seemed like a dream he was waking from. The more he realized, the more he wanted to know, but he dared ask no questions. The memory of the sound of his own voice scared him, and he did not trust the four bucks around him.

They walked for a long time through a wood very much like Running Cedar’s own but which gradually began to change the deeper they moved into it. The trees steadily became wider and the underbrush thinner. The places to hide became fewer, and Running Cedar felt his pulse quicken as undead instincts rose inside him. Apparently, the new awareness had no effect on the already existent impulses, and they now dueled together, his one mind suggesting he follow and the other insisting he flee. And so his pace was halting. He paused often to look around him, his large ears moving wildly, his eyes rimmed in white, and the four bucks always stood patiently and waited. They seemed familiar with the process, almost bored, and their eyes and ears suggested they trusted the space entirely. A natural deer would have taken comfort from their trust, but Running Cedar had steadily been leaving behind his natural self for nearly an hour.

When the canopy above them was high and dense enough to leave them entirely in the shade, the sun making it through the evergreen boughs only enough to dapple a coat here and there, the large buck finally stopped. His destination seemed to be nothing more than a small pile of stones in the center of a clearing. Running Cedar watched him intently, his eyes following him as he stepped up to the stones. To the wonder of the young buck, he raised one fore hoof and rapped the uppermost stone, and then stepped away.

At first, nothing happened. And then Running Cedar’s life changed.

~

Nathan rolled over in his sleep. Unfortunately, he rolled off his pillow, which lolled his head to one side and dragged a long line of translucent spittle from the abandoned pillow to the corner of his gaping mouth. Nathan, however, didn’t notice. His head cocked in what would have been an uncomfortable angle had he been awake, he slept on, snoring loudly now that his breathing passage ways were somewhat obstructed. It was nearly four in the morning, still very dark outside except for the street light just outside his window. Even that had problems piercing the darkness of the small room, however, due to the large filing cabinet Nathan had shoved against the blinds in an effort to keep out that very train-tunnel of a light while he slept. Never mind broken blinds; Nathan never used them anyway. Nathan wasn’t all that fond of light of any kind, really. He had low watt lamps for his room when he needed it at all, and his skin shown a pearlescent shade when under them.

So it wasn’t the tipping of his head or the rattling of his own snores that eventually woke Nathan, but the sudden and silent vanishing of the light outside. Like one wakes when music has suddenly died or silence becomes too heavy, Nathan woke to sudden enveloping darkness. It was a quick waking, and he gave a little snort, but didn’t sit up right away. Instead he stared at the ceiling he could not longer see and wondered what woke him. In another moment, he realized how dark the room had become, and a great relief settled over him. A third moment passed, and Nathan began to wonder why it was so dark. Running his tongue over his dry lips, Nathan sat up slowly, blinking in an effort to see something through the black space between he and the filing cabinet which had been, minutes earlier, silhouetted by the yellow glare of the street lamp. Grunting, Nathan shuffled off the bed and stumbled toward the window, his hands in front of him to catch the filing cabinet before his feet did. He felt around the edge of the metal cabinet and found the window glass, then pressed his face against it in effort to see the city outside.

It was like the whole world had gone black. There wasn’t a street or house light for miles, only the residue yellow haze in the sky that always hide the stars. Nathan blinked several times, but no light returned to the area.

“Weird…” He pulled away from the window again and stumbled back to his bed, not really right enough in the head at four in the morning to worry too much about it. It would be explained by the morning.

Around four oh seven, the lights of the city came back on, haloing the filing cabinet again, but Nathan didn’t wake. He lay very still in his bed, his mouth open again, a bit of drool pooling on the corners of his lips. He had stopped snoring now, and the thin cover over his chest was still. Nathan lay as if dead primarily because he was.

~

When the big buck stepped away from the haphazard pile of stones, the air seemed to still around Running Cedar. He felt his own breath pause, his eyes refuse to blink, his heart skip a moment in time, but his mind never stopped working. He could feel the air around him become thick as the molecules hung suspended. In another second, it had passed, and time was moving again, but Running Cedar felt phenomenally different. Where before his new awakening consciousness had been subtle and delicate, his mind burst brilliantly into self awareness. He knew himself for what he was—a young white tail buck in a strange forest with strange deer marked in the most unusual ways surrounding him. He knew also, though less poignantly, the wistful memory of his mother and his youth, the thrill of victory in small battles with other young bucks, the disappointment and shame of loss, the self-involved fear of escaping death that had been his life as a natural deer.

But he knew a great many other things besides, things he was unfamiliar with, things that confused him. Images of a young pale face with gray eyes—a face distinctly predator in nature—swam into his understanding like a pale fish from dark water. Pain that wasn’t part of his own short life, happiness relating to things he didn’t understand, memories that had nothing to do with the forest at all were filtering themselves into his own, filing in between his real memories as if settling permanently.

Blinking, Running Cedar stared at the large buck. “What happened?” he asked, now fully aware of what he was saying.

“Carthe,” said the older buck, studying Running Cedar now with a look in his eyes the young buck recognized as confusion.

Running Cedar flashed his gaze around to the other three bucks. They, too, had looks of mild bewilderment on their faces. “And what is carthe?” he asked all of them.

“Sacred,” said the one with barring on his face.

“Select,” said the dark one.

“Secret,” said the other whose four legs were adorned with high white stockings.

Running Cedar turned back to the large buck who said, “You are Marked.”

“I still don’t understand.” There was a warning buzz in Running Cedar’s mind now, something whispering of danger unlike any he had ever known.

“You will. Come, you are ready to meet Dawn Back.”

Again, the bucks moved forward so to hem him in and force his moving, but Running Cedar did not move this time. “I didn’t come to see Dawn Back,” he said, his voice neither defiant nor fearful, but clammy and careful.

“But you came,” said the large buck, his voice similar but with a deeper chord in it. “And so you must see Dawn Back.”

Running Cedar still did not move his legs, though one ear twitched as he stared into the pale eyes of the larger buck. To his surprise, he realized the larger buck was actually staring over Running Cedar’s shoulders and would not meet his eyes. “Who is Dawn Back?” Running Cedar asked, “And why must I see him?”

“Her,” said the large buck, but did not answer his questions. “If you do not come, we have orders to kill you.”

The words were offered like information, not as a threat, but Running Cedar felt his skin grow taunt. “Kill me?”

“You have crossed the stream. You have been carthed. You are Marked. You must meet Dawn Back, or we must kill you.” The large buck lowered his impressive rack a fraction, as in to punctuate the idea.

“Then…” said Running Cedar slowly, “I suppose I will come and meet Dawn Back.”